Why We Behave The Way We Behave

I am not talking about the incidents and moments of a regular day in our lives when we get up in the morning, get ready, go to work, meet friends, come back home in the evening and sleep at night to get up again the next morning for the same routine.

I am referring to the way we behave in a given situation, and the reason as to why we behave in that particular manner. No two people will behave in the same manner in the same given situation. It all depends upon our personality and understanding of the situation that we respond to it in a particular fashion. We all have different level of understanding of a situation, and we all have our own boundaries of comfort level. We all have some principles which we are not ready to break; however, there are some which we can break to our own convenience. We all have different level of tolerance and stubbornness in us. Some thing which is quite acceptable to one might not be acceptable to the other. The reason for it can be many.

Right from our child hood days, there are many factors and incidents which have an impact on our behavior that tend to form our personality. Our background, upbringing, parents, family, education, friends, atmosphere at our home in which we are brought up, surroundings, and many more factors tend to influence us early in our lives and mould us in a particular fashion. Researches also show that it becomes very difficult to change the personality after the age of 8 to 10. However, out of all these factors, the two influencers who are the strongest in molding us are our parents and friends. We spend the maximum time of our day with either our parents at home or our friends. If our parents are very devoted and lead a simple life, we tend to pick up the same from them, and start believing that this is best manner to lead a life.

Parents have a personality, which is more or less fixed, and they expect the child to behave in similar fashion (in a given situation) as they would have themselves behaved. The child takes up the cues from parents and with the influence of friends’ forms up his own behavior. But our parents must have also formed their personality from their parents. In this manner, the principles and boundaries of tolerance is transferred from one generation to the other.

But the real problem arises when the influence of our friends increases so much in our lives that we give more importance to them than to our parents. The generation gap and the difference in the level of being orthodox to certain non important issues become very evident in that situation. It is that this time that we find people of our generation becoming rebellious and breaking all the social norms set by the society and forming their own set of rules and principles. It is that this time that we are forced to answer the question “Why did you behave in this manner”, “What was the reason for you to take this decision”, “What made you think that this will be good for you” and “You don’t realize the impact this can have on you”.

I feel parents should now give a free hand to their children in taking their own decisions rather than imposing things on them. In this era of globalization when we are exposed to so many things at the same time, probably the time has come to become more relaxed in the norms which have been set by our forefathers for the socially acceptable behavior.

It is now the time to live our life the way we want it to without any one else judging it or commenting on it to be right or wrong. It is now the time not to ask one “Why you did what you did”.

• Culture, Guest Post, India, Me, New Age Thinking, Random Thoughts
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